


Take What You Want

by Dhaskoi



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Red Kryptonite Kara Danvers, The fluff and the light bondage and the happy ending are all in chapter 2 I'm afraid, supercat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 23:48:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14758602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dhaskoi/pseuds/Dhaskoi
Summary: The familiar whoosh of displaced air and rustle of a cape alert Cat to a familiar presence before the shadow falls across her balcony.  A smile is already curling at her lips as she turns to face her surprise visitor, a suitable quip coming to mind.The smile fades and the witty remark dies in her mouth as she takes in the scene.It’s Kara of course, and yet not.  Cat knows at once what she’s looking at, even as a hard ball of ice forms in her stomach and chills her from the bone out.It’s there in the hard set of her shoulders, the imperiously raised chin and the cocky tilt to her hips as she floats over Cat, just high enough that Cat must crane her neck to look to look into dark, dark eyes.





	Take What You Want

Take What You Want

 

Cat still has a balcony and it still has one hell of a view.  It may not be quite as impressive as the view from the office in the building that still has her name on the side, but Washington D.C at night is nothing to scoff at.  Especially when you can see the White House in the distance and know you’re one of the people who keeps the place running.

Sometimes Cat thinks the balcony was a mistake.  If she’s honest with herself, she only wanted it for the unspoken promise it embodies.  There are things that can still happen so long as she has a balcony.  Possibilities that still exist, however unlikely they may be.  An apartment without a balcony would have been an admission, one that she hardly dares put into words.  Instead she has a balcony that never serves its intended purpose.  What hurts more?  A dream unfulfilled or a dream surrendered?

Still, when the last of the work is done and she’s showered and cleansed and changed into her pyjamas, a few minutes observing the D.C skyline by night with a glass of scotch in hand makes a nice ritual to close out the day.  And if she’s foolish enough to indulge in a moment or two of nostalgia, no one but her will ever know.

Telling herself that thoughts this maudlin are a sign of the mid-life crisis she refuses to have, Cat turns to head inside and go to bed when the unexpected occurs.  For a moment she imagines it was summoned by her errant thought.

The familiar whoosh of displaced air and rustle of a cape alert Cat to a familiar presence before the shadow falls across her balcony.  A smile is already curling at her lips as she turns to face her surprise visitor, a suitable quip coming to mind.

The smile fades and the witty remark dies in her mouth as she takes in the scene.

It’s Kara of course, and yet not.  Cat knows at once what she’s looking at, even as a hard ball of ice forms in her stomach and chills her from the bone out.

It’s there in the hard set of her shoulders, the imperiously raised chin and the cocky tilt to her hips as she floats over Cat, just high enough that Cat must crane her neck to look to look into dark, dark eyes.  The warning signs are etched so deep in Cat’s memory that she doesn’t need to see their black fury to know what’s happening.  Looking into those eyes is just the last piece of evidence that eradicates any doubt and crystallises the knowledge that this is a reality she must deal with, not a nightmare she can hope to wake up from.

“Not happy to see me, Kitty Kat?” Kara says, almost purring.

Even in this awful moment, Cat can’t help but give her credit for making the pun purely with the tone of her voice.

 

* * *

 

For a moment, as Kara hovers there above her, Cat is standing on a different balcony, caught in the moment before someone she’d come to admire and trust had betrayed her expectations utterly.  It was the sheer unexpectedness of it that shook her then.  The violence, the danger – those weren’t outside of her experience.  She knew how to cope with them.

Cat usually knew who her enemies were.  She endured betrayals that didn’t merit the description because she saw them coming, or at least had always known they’d happen eventually.  She’s never shocked when her mother cuts her to the quick (again, again, again) or a lover leaves her, or a business associate turns on her.  The only surprising thing about the board’s efforts to oust her from her own damned company had been how long it took them to work up the nerve.

But Supergirl – _Kara_ – suddenly lashing out had been nothing she ever saw coming.

Cat shakes herself out of the memory with an act of will.  She has to focus, regardless of her plunging stomach and shaking hands.  She reminds herself that her mind is the most powerful tool she has (the only weapon at her disposal) and she needs to use it.

Shocked back to functionality by her self-admonishment her mind races in a dozen different directions.

_Thank god Carter’s at camp._

_Can I get to my alert button – no, she’s too fast._

_Does her sister know?  The DEO?  Her friends?  How long for them to realise?  How long for them to get here if they already know?_

_Has she been anywhere else first?  Hurt anyone?_

_How did it happen?  Max?  He’s been quiet lately – that SEC investigation forced him to pull his horns in. Did someone else get their hands on whatever he used on Kara the first time?  Christ, I hope it wasn’t Lillian._

That last consideration is especially worrying, but Cat knows she can’t let herself be distracted by it or by anything that isn’t related to surviving the next minute, and the one after that, and the one after that.  All she can do right now is buy as much time as possible, hope that the DEO are already on their way and try to keep Kara’s attention on her.  If the younger woman’s attention is focused on Cat she’s not making trouble elsewhere and just the thought of Kara running unchecked through the streets of D.C in her current condition is enough to make her nauseous.  Cat can envisage all too vividly the many ways that could end in disaster and the permanent damage that would be done.

A pretty speech about faith and a few self-sacrificing gestures wouldn’t be enough to heal the public’s wounded trust then, never mind how congress and the senate might react or the political hay Sam Lane and his cronies would make.  He’d cheerfully exploit the reactionary behaviour that would flourish in the aftermath of an incident like that.

Thankfully Kara’s here instead and if she’d made much of a scene elsewhere first Cat would probably already have gotten a call about it.  The phone that’s never turned off - the one that ensures Olivia can always reach her in an emergency - hasn’t rung so hopefully Cat can keep Kara’s focus.  There are implications to that . . .

 _Don’t let yourself get distracted.  You_ can’t _let yourself think about that, especially not now._

 

* * *

 

 The few seconds it takes Cat to get herself together – or at least some semblance of it – is all the time Kara is willing to wait.

“What Kitty Kat, no snappy response?  Don’t tell me the you-know-what has your tongue.  That could be a real problem – especially with the new job and all.”

“Just a little surprised,” Cat drawls. _Don’t show fear,_ she thinks.  “I’d say it’s been awhile, but that seems a little on the nose.”

Kara huffs a laugh.  She knows exactly what Cat’s asking, although she doesn’t deign to take the bait.

Instead she drifts closer and slowly floats down to land on the balcony, so gentle she barely makes a sound as her feet hit the tile.  Cat backs up carefully, stepping from the balcony into her bedroom without taking her eyes from Kara, wishing her bare feet had better purchase on the freshly polished hardwood underfoot.  Kara smirks, but doesn’t say anything.  Instead she eyes Cat up and down with a frankness that Cat is accustomed to experiencing from men, although there have been a few women . . .

She swallows hard, wishing suddenly that it wasn’t such a warm night, that she’d had reason to wear more than a camisole and sleep shorts of thin cream silk.

 _It’s not like there’s an approved dress code for encounters with mentally disturbed superheroes_ , she thinks wildly.

Kara tilts her head, almost coquettish, although her expression makes Cat think of a child pulling the wings off a fly for fun.  Terrifying as it is to find herself at the mercy of a capricious demigod, the pain of knowing how Kara will feel when she’s restored to her right mind is even greater.

“You know, when you left again I really thought you might keep in touch this time.  All that talk about human connection . . . but you just moved on.  Left me behind.”

_Ah.  So that’s why she’s here._

_Alright._

_I can work with this._

Kara moves towards her and Cat decides that shifting this conversation out of her bedroom is advisable.  As Cat recalls, Kara is more inclined to indulge in the ritual of imbibing when she’s like this.

“Care to discuss it over a drink?  I don’t keep the good stuff in here.”

It’s not the strongest segue.  Cat doesn’t do her best work when she’s had this little time to prepare, but Kara lets her get away with it.  Or at least she doesn’t move to stop Cat as she turns to leave the room.

Cat moves unhurriedly, trying to make her slow retreat seem as natural as possible.  But turning her back on Kara without tensing is beyond even her stainless-steel sangfroid, and she doesn’t miss Kara’s low chuckle as she steps out of the bedroom and into the hallway.

Moving down the hall Cat senses Kara coming up next to her, matching her pace and just a little too close for comfort.  Her steps seem oddly truncated and Cat flicks her gaze sideways for a second trying to make sense of what’s bothering her.  It takes a moment for her to realise that Kara is swinging her hips for long strides and then pulling pack, taking small steps instead.  She would almost call it mincing if there weren’t such power in every movement.

Kara is stalking Cat - and drawing it out.

Cat refuses to lean on the oldest and most tired of metaphors.  Especially not when every feline themed pun in existence has been slung at her by lazy detractors who can’t make the effort to come up with something even vaguely original.  But there are only so many ways to describe what’s happening here.

Kara is playing.

Kara is toying with her.

And all Cat can do is play along.

 

* * *

 

 Cat feels better once she’s out in the lounge where she has room to manoeuvre.  The layout is similar to her office, with a large open space and a couch towards one end.  It won’t make much difference if everything goes to hell, but just feeling like she has options makes her feel a little more settled, a little readier for battle.  A little cockier.  She’s able to be stronger out here than in her bedroom, where she can focus on matching wits with Kara and not be distracted by the claustrophobic pressure of being in close confines with her.

“So, what happened this time?  Did your favourite food truck run out of pot stickers?  Couldn’t get tickets for Taylor Swift?  Brooklyn Nine Nine was already picked up by NBC if you’re upset about the cancellation.”

Cat pauses for a moment before deciding to take the risk.

“Or did Lord somehow manage to whammy you again?  I was under the impression he was a little afraid to show his face in National City these days.”

Dangerous to taunt Kara like this, but not as dangerous as letting her grow bored.  If Cat is careful she can walk the line between Kara flying off to wreak havoc elsewhere and getting thrown off another building.  They may be a little lower to the ground this time, but six floors is high enough if Kara decides to skip the last minute save.  The mind altered kryptonian in question is leaning casually against the arched entrance to the lounge as they talk, watching as Cat makes a show of pouring herself a generous scotch.  It must be the most slowly poured drink in history, Cat thinks, and not only because she’s looking to squeeze every possible spare second she can out of this encounter.

"Oh, you know about that do you?  I bet you've had fun abusing your new clearance to find out allllll about me.  All those things you weren't allowed to know.  I bet it just burned your butt being on the outside like that.  Is that why you took the job?  A chance to get the inside scoop?"

There’s not a light on in the apartment, but the floor to ceiling windows that line one wall of the lounge let in enough light from the city outside to see by.  Sufficient for Cat to pour her drink and make out Kara’s features, anyway.  Dappled by shadow, the contours of her face are distorted in a way that oddly compliments the sharp tone of her words.

“As if I didn’t have it already,” Cat scoffs.  Kara’s words cut far deeper than she can afford to admit.  “Did you really think your shape shifting friend fooled me for more than a few days?  Especially once your double started flying around?  Actually, it was this,” and Cat waggles her hand with a vagueness meant to indicate their current circumstances, “that made it impossible to ignore for any longer.  Supergirl goes off the deep end at the same time my mousy little assistant goes all Jacqueline Hyde on me?  The coincidences just kept on mounting up.  The same sorts of coincidences that made me suspicious in the first place.  And after your Martian friend came out of his green closet there really wasn’t any doubt left.  I did try to warn you that I knew, if you’ll remember.  More than once.”  Cat can’t keep a hint of bitterness out of her tone there, but Kara lets it go by.

 “Such a clever little Kitty Kat,” Kara muses.  “Actually, it was Lillian playing her little games again.  She thought I’d go crazy and kill her precious daughter.  Well, her plan was that I’d _try_ to kill her precious daughter – and then she’d swoop in and save the day.  She was going to kill me and be hailed as a hero for it, discredit aliens everywhere and get Lena indebted to her.”

Kara grins meanly.

“Spoiler alert - things did _not_ go quite the way she intended.”

“So, nothing to do with Lord at all?” Cat asks, voice as dry as she can manage.  “That makes a nice change.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Kara replies with a mocking tilt of her head.  “Lillian had a little help.  Turns out she and Max are old buddies.  Did you know?”

As a matter of fact, Cat does know - and frankly wishes she didn’t.  Despite her keen understanding of the power of knowledge she could stand to know a little less about that particular relationship (although calling it a relationship is to twist the meaning of the word into a Mobius strip).  Their mutual antipathy for anyone who can’t meet a particularly narrow definition of ‘human’ is about the only thing Lillian and Max have in common, but it’s been enough for a joint venture or two.  Nothing Cat could get sufficient confirmation of to actually publish, unfortunately.

Thoughts of what Lillian and Max might have gotten up to together when no one else was watching are her idea of nightmare fuel.  Especially if they’ve been playing around with red kryptonite.  Honestly, Cat thinks, the stuff seems to come in more colours than a packet of skittles.

And then the full import of Kara’s words sinks in.

_Shit._

“But instead of paying her a visit you came straight here?  Didn’t seek out the other billionaire CEO you know with the alliterative name?  The one a little closer to your age?  I imagine that irritated Lillian more than slightly.”

Kara’s expression twists.  Cat didn’t think it was possible for that face to be anything other than lovely, but this is as close to ugly as she’s ever seen it and Cat abruptly realises that she’s screwed up.  The age crack was a misstep (why is it only the moment after she speaks that she has these insights, and never the moment before? As ever, her wit is quicker than her caution).  She was in too much of a rush to get answers and gave too much away.

“ _Lena_ ,” Kara drawls, stretching the name out, seeming to savour the anger that goes with it, “wants to put me on a leash and parade me around like a pet.  Or maybe lock me up someplace where no-one except her ever gets to see me.  You know she bought out your company and appointed herself CEO just to get closer to me?  She sure likes ordering me around, too.  _So_ obvious.”

Kara snickers.

“She probably thinks it’s a power move.  I bet she doesn’t even realise how desperate it makes her look, that she’ll go that far to try and displace you.  And noooo, I didn’t kill her,” she adds impatiently. Cat twitches and Kara rolls her eyes.

“You aren’t subtle Kitty.  I know exactly what you’re thinking.  Didn’t I always?  Lena and I just had a little chat, is all.  About boundaries and power and how she really needs to stand up to mommy a little more.  Oh, and about keeping secrets she shouldn’t – but I think we worked that out.  No big deal.”

The casual callousness in her tone hits like a blow to the chest and leaves Cat just as breathless.  She braces herself to try and pry a little more detail out of Kara, hoping to get her off on a tangent (and needing to know how much of a public scene she might have made with a high profile and highly photogenic it girl).  Fortunately, Kara seems happy to talk while she’s like this.  That’s something at least.

“I don’t know why you even care.  You’re too busy making your mark in Washington to give a moment’s thought to the people back in National City, even when they’re _still_ letting you define their lives.  How utterly pathetic.  You’re more interested in living out a fantasy of being C.J Cregg than keeping up with the people you left behind.”

Cat can’t let that one slide – and she can’t let Kara have complete control the conversation.

“People fantasise about being _me_ , Supergirl, not the other way around.  When you’re a gorgeous billionaire who runs a multinational company before upgrading to the White House you don’t need a fantasy life.  Every dream I ever had I realised.”  She pauses for a second, wondering if what she’s about to say is too much of an admission.  But the rule is keep Kara talking, so that’s what she’s going to do.

“You could have called me, Kara.  You had my number.  You’re one of the few people who does.”

 “After the way you ran off without a word and never said anything about it?  You don’t call, you don’t write . . . too good for the superhero in your life now you’re a Washington big shot?”

“I’ve been a little busy.  Wrangling the Washington Press Corp is an even bigger pain in the ass than keeping on top of the incompetents that passed for my department heads at CatCo.  Not to mention the interns they keep assigning me make the organisers of the Fyre Festival look professional in comparison.”

“I’ve seen you on C-SPAN,” Kara interjects.  “You don’t seem to be having much trouble keeping them in line.”

“Despite what you may assume my job doesn’t start five seconds before the cameras start rolling and end the moment they stop.  I would hope that after two years as my assistant you’d know better than that.”

 

“Liar.”

 

The word is spoken so plainly, so casually, that for a heartbeat Cat doesn’t realise what Kara actually said.  Then she does – and the chill seems to explode out from her bones to freeze her whole body solid.

For a moment she’s locked in place, pinned as surely as a butterfly in some Victorian child’s collection by Kara’s knowing accusation.

“You know it’s funny?”  Kara straightens casually and begins to slowly walk around the edge of the room, her voice rising as she speaks.

“Everyone else I know always wants more from me.  More of me.  Wants me to do this, wants me to do that, thinks I should act this way or that way.  I’m so surrounded by people who want to make me small I’m being crowded out of my own life!  Except you.  You gave me so much space you moved to the other side of the country!  I guess you were just that sick of me.”

Even in this moment Cat can’t help but marvel at the irony, that the girl who wears her heart on her sleeve and can’t keep a secret or tell a lie to save her life does such a good job of burying all this so deep inside her that even the people who know her best can forget it’s there from time to time – and most never suspect its existence.

But here it is, in all its ugly raging glory.

“Don’t give yourself too much credit, Kara.  Do you really think all my life decisions revolve around you?”

As she replies Cat begins to sidle away from Kara, past the windows that are currently at her back.  She keeps her movements slow, natural, not that she imagines Kara’s fooled for a second.  But perhaps she’ll believe that Cat thinks she’s fooling her.

“You’re dodging the question, Kitty Kat,” Kara murmurs as she stalks the other woman around the room.  The dark edge in her voice has hardened.  She’s done letting Cat buy time, apparently.

 “You’ve been a reporter for more than a year and you still don’t understand the difference between a question and a statement,” Cat sighs.

Kara props her hands on her torso, above the line of her waist, and Cat shivers as she recognises the gesture.  It’s hers, mirrored darkly by the other woman.  She remembers this from before, now that she’s thinking of it, how Kara would strut the same way Cat did, pose the way she did, even talk the way she did.  It was a kind of seduction, almost.

“No more games, Kitty.  You know what I’m asking.”

She shrugs.

“Does it really bother you that much, Kara?  It’s not like -”

“TELL ME WHY YOU LEFT!”

If Kara’s previous quiet words laid ice in her bones this is more like an avalanche falling on her from above.  Cat can’t control the way she jerks back into the wall, bruising her shoulder blades and banging her head, especially when Kara is suddenly in front of her, the sheer force of her presence overwhelming.  She doesn’t need to loom – her anger radiates out from her so forcefully it presses cat up against the wall as surely as any physical force.

“No excuses about diving or broadening your horizons or public service or new adventures, Kitty.  Tell.  Me.  Why.”

“He was going to take Carter away from me.”

The words slip out without conscious volition and Cat feels a stab of horror at the loss of control.  She’s supposed to be stronger than this.  She’s kept this secret from everyone, held its jagged cutting edges inside her, stored away in the same place she keeps the memory of giving Adam up and the name of a woman who needn’t have died if Cat had just been a little bit stronger, braver.

And now she’s given it away to the last person on the planet who should ever know, at the worst possible time.

“What?  Cat, what do you mean?”

For the first time since her arrival Kara sounds like her usual self, shocked right out of her anger by Cat’s revelation.  The older woman tries to reach past her panic to seize the opportunity.

“After Myriad – after everything that happened that year – Carter’s father sued for sole custody.  He said,” Cat pauses for a moment, grappling with remembered frustration and fury.  Even without Kara straining her self-control to its breaking point the mess of guilt, anger, fear and regret that these memories evoke would have her struggling to remain centred.  Her own ragged breaths are harsh in her ears and Cat makes a conscious effort to calm herself.  It’s hard.  She’s almost more stressed by this than she is by matching wits with Kara.

“He said that it wasn’t safe for Carter in National City.  He said it wasn’t safe for Carter to be with _me_.  Not with supervillains targeting me and every threat in the city coming straight at CatCo.  He filed suit on the basis that I’d made myself a target by supporting you and put Carter in danger.”

God, even now the thought of it makes her hands clench with the urge to wrap them around his scrawny neck with its cheap liposuction job.

“He gets a new wife and all of a sudden he feels like playing daddy for the first time in years.”

And Kara is just standing there, staring at her.  Her face oddly blank as though she hasn’t yet decided how to feel about any of this.

 _Keep talking.  Buy time.  Buy all the time you can_.

“I was already planning a change, something new, something different.  I changed that year and what I wanted out of life changed too.  Once I knew I was going to be away from CatCo the opportunity to spend more time with Carter was an obvious benefit.  It was a trial having to play repentant mommy, but the judge lapped it up and that was that.”

Oh, how it had burned to let total strangers take ownership of a choice she’d already made.  If it had been anything other than the wellbeing of her sweet, sensitive boy at stake she’d have dug in her heels and dragged her miserable ex through the ugliest, bloodiest legal battle she could manage.  Not if Carter would be in the middle of it though.  Especially not if he might be called to the stand for whatever sleazebag her ex had hired to poke and prod at.  Cat wasn’t going to put Carter through that for anything.  For his sake she’d swallow far greater humiliations than simpering to some old dinosaur who still thought Leave it To Beaver was the archetype every family unit should aspire to.  A choice between savaging her ex the way he richly deserved and protecting her son was no choice at all.

Kara spins and stomps away from her, moving towards the middle of the room.  Cat suspects that if there were any furniture in the way Kara would kick it right through the nearest wall.  She starts to edge her way around the room again while Kara is distracted.  Kara mutters and curses to herself for precious seconds as she strides back and forth before turning back to Cat.

“No,” she says flatly.

“No?”

“I don’t believe you.  A custody battle isn’t a reason to sever ties the way you did.  You could have called.  You could have written.  There were months where the only way I knew anything about what you were doing was by stalking you on twitter.  You’ve given me lots of reasons for leaving, Kitty, but none of them are the real reason.  Everything you've told me so far might be true, but it's not the whole story.  You didn’t have to run all the way to Bhutan just to _find yourself_ ,” Kara sneers, the words laden with contempt, “and don’t pretend for one second you couldn’t have just shredded your ex if you felt like it.”

Cat opens her mouth to object.  She’s not going to let anyone pretend her sacrifice was an _excuse_.  Before she can speak Kara cuts her off.

“Nuh-uh.  No-one makes the almighty Catherine Jane Grant do anything she doesn’t want to do.  You left because you wanted to.  And you are going to tell me why, Kitty Kat.”

The steady implacability in Kara’s voice is more intimidating than her spite or her insults or the temper tantrum she just threw.  She wants answers, and nothing is going to stop her from getting them.  There’s no hesitation, no uncertainty and no doubt.  It’s everything Cat has ever hoped for Kara since the day they met.

If only she could achieve it without the red kryptonite exposure.

 

* * *

 

“Come on Kitty, tell me the real reason.  What's the truth behind the truth?" Kara smirks.

"Repeating the same question is terrible interview technique.  I know Snapper’s about as subtle as a Lars Von Trier film, but he ought to be teaching you better than that."

 It's a struggle to keep her voice steady now.  She hasn’t run out of diversions, but she’s clearly worn out Kara’s tolerance for them.  The girl has grown, more than Cat had expected based on some of the things she's heard since her departure, but perhaps she shouldn't be so surprised.  She knows from experience that nothing teaches like pain.  Under other circumstances she'd be proud seeing these investigative instincts at work.

 

She just wishes Kara wasn't using them _now_.

 

“You need to stop lying to me, Kitty Kat.  I’m getting _real_ tired of that.”

Kara’s coming closer again as Cat moves further around the room.  The cityscape is at her back now, her silhouette haloed by the city lights.  It’s the kind of visual James would love, Cat thinks, one of those throwaway thoughts that come at the strangest times.

And suddenly Cat is tired.  Tired of the games, tired of the secrets, tired of this demand for openness from someone who has kept so much from her, expected her to play along and then acted like she was putting one over on Cat.

“It’s not as though you were able to be honest with me, Kara.  Do you think it was fun for me, being shut out of your life like that?  Do you think it was easy knowing what you’d gone through – or not knowing – and not being able to ask?”

Cat hardly notices how high and shrill her voice is getting as the words get away from her. 

“Having to always pretend that everything was okay, that _you_ were okay when I knew you weren’t?  There were times when I wanted – when, when I wanted, to just hold you, _god_ , just hold you and know you were okay.  But I wasn’t fucking allowed to do that because you had to keep your precious secret!”

She has to stop for a second, panting and distraught.  Surprisingly Kara doesn’t interrupt.

“And you had to have fucking known by the end that you could trust me – that I wasn’t going to tell anyone!  That you were more important to me than any goddamn story and that I wouldn’t have told anyway!  I think I made that obvious enough!  But you just couldn’t.  I wasn’t worthy of your trust.  I couldn’t live with that.”

“Really,” Kara says flatly.  “That was the reason.  It was all _my_ fault for not spilling my guts?  I was just supposed to tell you everything and trust you wouldn’t use it against me?”

“ _I already_ _knew everything!_   Christ Kara, if I’d wanted to publish I had more than enough evidence!  Do you even realise how many times you gave yourself away?  And all that time I sat on the story, even steered other reporters away from it, all to protect you!”

“You know, that’s true.  You did protect me.  And then you left.  Can’t protect someone from the other side of the country.  Can’t mentor them, can’t advise them.  What changed?”

Kara regards her thoughtfully, anger shifting towards something more considering.  Calculating.  She almost looks pleased.

Cat thinks she preferred the anger.

“It started after my promotion, didn’t it?  That’s when things changed,” Kara smiles.  “When we weren’t working side by side any longer, when we didn’t get to see each other every day, all day . . . that was when you started to think about leaving CatCo.”

Kara’s ability to see right through Cat has always been one of her best qualities.  To be truly seen, to be _known_ , is a gift, one that Cat knew the value of even on days she could have stood to be known a little less well by her assistant (there were days it was the only thing that kept Kara employed).  But oh, how she wishes for a little blindness on Kara’s part now.

“Things are so _clear_ to me now.  The red kryptonite doesn’t make me crazy Cat, it just takes the blinders off.  It sets me free, so I can be the person I _should_ be.  I know why I’ve missed you so much, Kitten,” Kara purrs, “and I know why you put so much distance between us.”

 

_Oh no.  Oh no, no, no, no, no.  Not this.  Please god anything but this._

This is everything she wanted and knew she would never be allowed to have, given to her in the most awful way possible.  Not the fulfillment of a dream but a twisted mockery of it.

“I don’t know what delusion you’ve decided to embrace this time Kara, but I assure you -”

“Shhhhhhh,” Kara reaches out to place a finger oh-so-carefully on Cat’s lips.  When did she get so close?  Was it a burst of speed or did her attention slip for a moment?  With Kara’s closeness comes a familiar awareness of her warmth and presence and the clean, crisp scent of her.

Before Cat knew what it was to have those oh-so-strong arms around her she’d imagined vanilla or wildflowers or something basic and entirely predictable in its relentless cheerfulness.  Clinique’s Happy most likely.  In reality Kara often doesn’t smell of anything but herself (and sometimes a trace of smoke or ozone).  If warmth and strength and freshness have an essential scent Kara is it.  Cat suspects all that high-speed flight and frequent showers after messy rescues make perfume impractical, or at least short lived.  She feels oddly betrayed by the discovery that this remains unchanged in their current circumstances.

“Something else I know about you Kitten.  You always push people away when they get too close.  And that's what this is, isn’t it?  Running from what you thought you couldn’t have.  You never stopped to ask me how I felt about it.  You just decided for both of us.  I guess you’re just the same as everyone else in the end.”

For all that it’s feigned, the disappointment in Kara’s voice still cuts deep.

“No,” Cat murmurs, but the way she shivers as her lips move against Kara’s still present finger undermines her credibility.  Not that it makes much difference when Kara can undoubtedly hear the thundering of her heart.  She steps back, and Kara follows.

“Still lying,” Kara sighs, sounding almost sympathetic.  Almost, if it weren’t for the smugness, the arrogance that underlies everything she does when she’s like this.

 

“Why fight it Kitten?  Why can’t you just tell me how you feel?  Be honest, is it so hard when I already know?”

 

“I’ve been honest with you.”

 

Cat hates the tremor she hears in her own voice, hates how small and breathless it sounds, hates how much it gives away.  Kara shakes her head, irritated but visibly less angry than she was earlier.  Of course she’s not angry, Cat thinks.  Kara knows she’s winning.

 

“Why can’t you just admit it?”

 

A hand at her throat.

 

“Why can’t you say it?”

 

A hand tightening.

 

“It’s time to be honest with me Kitten.  It’s time to be honest with yourself.”

 

She can hardly breathe.  And there is Kara’s voice, low and sweet and honey-rich with something poisonous.

 

“ _Tell me the_ real _reason you left_.”

 

Cat closes her eyes, lets the truth sigh out of her.  Feels herself weaken with the release.

 

“I fell in love with you.  I fell in love with you and I knew you could never love me back.”

 

The hand around her throat becomes a hand cupping her face.  Gentle, tender and utterly possessive.  Kara’s other hand has settled at her hip, drawing them inevitably together.

 

Cat knows where this is going (has always known) and yet when it comes the kiss is still completely unexpected, so much so that for a terrible second Cat forgets, opens her mouth and lets Kara right in, lets herself be plundered, stands on her toes and lets her arms rise to curl around the gorgeous Kryptonian's neck, pulling her closer.  Kara’s body is warm and firm against her, the only certain thing in a world that perpetually disappoints, yet her skin is still pliant under Cat’s questing hands.  She's wanted this for so long and held herself back for so long and Kara is right _here_ and wants _her_ and why should she deny herself -

And then awareness comes crashing in, a bigger shock than the time she had to do that godforsaken ice bucket challenge after Oprah challenged her on air.  She’s crying, Cat realises, feeling the sting of salt on her cheeks.  They’re not tears of fear or pain, but guilt and shame.  Because Kara is not remotely in her right mind, Cat knows she’s not and yet for a mindless moment she was willing to go along with this.

It’s that realisation that kills whatever guttering spark of desire Kara has managed to light within her and lets her reclaim something like sanity.  When Cat goes stiff and unresponsive in her arms Kara jerks back to look at her, rejected and instantly furious.  Black eyes bore into Cat’s own, an unnecessary reminder that this _isn’t_ Kara and Cat had better not delude herself otherwise.  Her hands tighten uncomfortably on Cat’s shoulders.  For an unnerving moment she’s reminded of husband number one and her reasons for divorcing him.

Kara studies Cat for a long moment before she speaks, still holding the older woman in place.

“Don’t you want this, Kitten?” she lilts.  “Don’t you want me?”

“Kara, Kara we can’t, _we can’t_ it’s not -”

 

“ _We Can!_   I am so tired of not getting what I want.  Why shouldn’t I?  This is my choice.  Don’t even try to tell me you don’t want it too.”

 

It’s seductive, phrased that way.  Refusing to take advantage of Kara is easy.  The idea that she’s denying Kara something she wants is much harder to resist.

 

But Cat can’t do this.  She _can’t_. 

It might be smarter to play along, pretend, compromise.

It would be so easy.

She could tell herself she doesn’t have a choice - she has to play along.  That the alternatives if she doesn’t are all worse and would be even harder for Kara to live with afterwards.  She might even tell herself that red kryptonite only unleashes desires that were already there, that she wouldn’t even be doing anything Kara didn’t want, not really.

Cat could do that.

If she’s willing to compromise herself utterly.

If she's willing to betray every principle she has.

It’s not even a choice.

And even if it were Cat could never be sure if she made the choice for the right reasons or the wrong ones.  Living with the doubt would destroy her.  Living with the guilt would destroy Kara.

She opens her mouth to say all of this to Kara, wondering if there’s any hope of persuading her or if this is the moment everything goes to hell when there’s a crack and the crash of glass shattering and Kara jerks in her arms before collapsing against her.  The suddenness of it combined with the weight of all that Kryptonian muscle drags Cat to the ground even as the door crashes open and DEO troops come thundering into her apartment, shaking the floor under her with their heavy tread.

 

* * *

 

When Lucy Lane’s face comes into view, peering down at her as she lies pinned under an unconscious Kryptonian, Cat wonders for a moment if she’s somehow wound up in a particularly surreal level of hell that dante forgot to mention.  If Katherine and Lois show up waving their jointly won Pulitzer she’ll have final confirmation.  Her one time legal counsel looks very dashing in form fitting black, wearing an expression that blends professionalism and unholy glee in a way only the Lane women can manage.

Then several bustling, black clad drones are clustered around her to pull Kara away.  Cat has an impulse to hold onto the blonde, but the strength just isn’t there.  After a moment she finds it in herself to sit up while Lucy crouches next to her, putting them eye to eye.

“Less awful Lane,” Cat breathes out, hating the unsteadiness of her voice that she can’t quite control.  She can already feel the adrenaline crash kicking in.  “You took your fucking time.”

Lucy, never an idiot, has no trouble grasping the subtext.

“I’d blame traffic, but it’s pretty light at one in the morning,” she cracks, reaching out to pull Cat up as she stands herself.  Lucy tries to steer her over to the couch, but Cat shakes her off to step over to where Kara is being strapped into a reinforced stretcher.  A sharp look from Lucy keeps any of the agents from getting in her way as she reaches out to brush a careful finger against Kara’s forehead.  She looks peaceful now.  Cat lets herself take comfort in the thought that Kara will be her normal self again soon, even though she knows it’s not nearly that simple.  Thoughts of how Kara will feel when she wakes up, of how this will affect their relationship, flood her mind.  Will Kara ever be able to look her in the eye again?

“It’s okay, Cat.  We know how to treat this.  Seriously, sit down for a minute.”  This time she lets Lucy guide her over to the couch, though her gaze never strays from where Kara as the stretcher is lifted and carried out.  She watches until the prone form disappears from view.  Normally she’d never let herself be handled like this, but Cat supposes she can allow a Red Kryptonite exception.

“She’s going straight to our D.C facility,” Lucy tells her, following Cat’s gaze.  “Alex is already on her way there.”

The mention of Alex Danvers soothes Cat’s immediate worry.  From the way Kara has spoken of her – and knowledge that has come to Cat second and third hand even before the access her current position imparts – she knows there are no safer or kinder hands for Kara to be in now.

“The sister?  Mm, she works for you too, doesn’t she?”

“Alex would tear you a new one if she heard you say she works for _me_ , but yeah.  Hey, nice work positioning Supergirl in front of the window so we could snipe her,” Lucy ventures after a few moments of silence.

“If you’d taken any longer it would have been a wasted effort.”

Cat is horrified to hear her voice crack on the last word.  She planned to snark her way right through this and have her breakdown in private like a civilised human being, but apparently that’s not going to happen.

Lucy’s sigh is drawn out and tired, a reminder that Cat isn’t the only one who’s stressed by the situation even if she took the brunt of it.

“When Kara entered D.C. airspace it didn’t take us long to pick her up.  She wasn’t exactly trying to hide, and these days we watch out for more than just aircraft.”

Cat remembers that meeting.  The White House Press Secretary isn’t always cleared to know these security details, but when you’ve had a closer relationship with Supergirl than anyone else in the administration you get to sit in on some interesting briefings.  Including one about the upgraded radar that watches the skies over the nation’s capital, optimised to track fast moving human-sized targets.

Cat had been reasonably confident that Kara’s arrival in D.C. would be noticed quickly, especially if the National City branch followed protocol and immediately informed their East Coast cousins of a Red incident.  She’d been much less confident about how long it would take them to look here, in Cat’s home.

“Once we knew she was here it didn’t take Alex long to realise she must have come to see you,” Lucy adds, with only the faintest twist of her lips.

“Hmmm.  I may have given the non-flying Danvers sister too little credit.”

“Alex knows how important you are to Kara, Cat.  She might wish otherwise sometimes, but she knows.”

Cat wonders exactly how much the no-nonsense brunette with the stunning jawline and the carefully tended red highlights does know, if she intuited Kara’s destination so quickly.  Her impression of Alex Danvers, the few times they’d been in the same room, had been someone whose strengths lay more in the direction of kicking down doors than puzzle solving.  Possibly the context of their meetings gave Cat a slightly distorted impression.  Either that, or Cat’s been kidding herself about what the people closest to Kara think of her relationship with her former boss.  She files the thought away as something to worry about later.

Around them the other DEO agents are slowly filtering out of the room, having attended to whatever arcane secret government agency business they engage in.  Cat allows herself to relax, a little, as the last of them leaves.  She needs a stiff drink, a shower and some sleep before she even starts to process everything that’s happened tonight, but having her apartment to herself again is a good first step.

Except for one more insistent interloper.

“I notice you’re still here agent - is it agent?”

“Major.”

“Major Lane.  Don’t tell me there’s some tiresome debriefing I have to go through right now?”

God she hopes not.  Cat will need to be at her best to talk around the details of her encounter with Kara and she is hardly that at the moment.  She’ll pull rank or throw a shit fit if she has to, but she’s not saying anything for the record until she’s had the time to go over it in her own head.  Finding the right balance between protecting Kara and telling the DEO what they do need to know (which is far from everything) will not be easy.

Lucy smiles faintly.

“Orders from the president.  Someone’s supposed to keep an eye on you.  The debriefing can wait until sometime after sunrise.”

“And you nominated yourself?”

Lucy pauses.  She doesn’t quite have the nerve to point out that she’s the closest thing Cat has to a friend here, but she’s clearly thinking it.  Cat relents.

“If you insist on hanging around you can at least fetch me a drink.”

Lucy rolls her eyes, but acquiesces to the request, fetching Cat the scotch she never got to pour for herself earlier.  With the glass in hand Cat starts to feel more herself.

For a little while they simply sit there in silence.  Lucy seems content to wait, despite the undoubtedly long list of places she has to be and people she has to talk to.

After a while Lucy stretches and makes noises about having duties to attend to.  She tells Cat that Olivia left instructions for her not to bother coming into work tomorrow and that someone from the DEO will be in touch about Cat needing to make a statement.  With a tentative pat on the shoulder and a not so subtle suggestion that Cat get some sleep she departs.

Cat sits for a little longer before she rises, flicks off the lights and makes her way to the guest room.  She can’t quite face her own bedroom and its balcony tonight.  Unconsciousness beckons as she slips between the sheets, but she resists for a minute as she plans out the next day.  Carter’s camp lasts for another week and Olivia will be willing to allow her a week or two leave, especially right now.

There’s a woman in National City who’s more lost than Cat realised.

A woman who needs her.

A woman Cat loves.

 

Cat has run from these truths for long enough.  It’s time to face them.

She has plans to make.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. This is the first thing I've written that wasn't for school or work in about a decade. Supercat and all the wonderful people who write for it have inspired me in a way that not much else has in a long time. A big shout out to all you lovely people.
> 
> The next chapter is blocked out and partly written so it should be up in a few weeks. And yes, it's the one with all the sex and fluff and the happy ending. :)


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